LOL: Can’t I play other games professionally?

Chapter 429 Have they disregarded all considerations for Sino-Japanese relations?
At least for now, ten-year-old Japanese prodigy Sumire Nakamura is managing to handle it.

After more than five moves of entanglement with Black, when the 67th piece was placed on the board, a ko fight with a slight delay was formed in the lower right corner.

A ko is a special shape in a game of Go, especially when both black and white stones are surrounding each other's stones and only have one life left. If one side captures a stone, the other side cannot immediately recapture it and must first place a stone in another position on the board. This is called finding ko threats.

A rule-based confrontation where the struggle can only continue after the other party has survived the ordeal.

Simply put, if both black and white have surrounded one of the opponent's pieces, then if it's white's turn, white can capture a black piece that has nowhere to retreat.

If it's Black's turn, Black can also capture a White piece, leaving only one liberty in the resulting shape. This allows both sides to repeatedly capture pieces, creating a cycle.

However, this cycle is not allowed in Go because it would prevent the game from progressing.

The "slow-down crisis" is a situation that arises from the confrontation between the two sides.

Because there are extra "liberties" (empty spaces) in the struggle between the two sides, they need to use "liberty control" to enter the stage of directly attacking and capturing pieces.

By move 68, Sumire Nakamura's hand, which was holding the Go stone, had begun to waver.

It seems that the only option facing her now is to continue creating ko fights in the lower right corner, thereby forcing her opponent into a shape with only one move left through local attacks, thus creating opportunities for subsequent ko fights.

This is also a key factor in turning the tide.

However, after some thought, Sumire Nakamura chose to retreat in order to advance, and went to the left side to destroy the ko point formed by the black stones gathering together.

Because the corner formation is a slow move, she cannot eliminate the ko no matter what move she makes, while Lin Ruo has a point where she can directly capture the ko and take pieces. However, it would require at least two moves, and the variables brought about by this narrow space are still too great.

Watching the white pieces move, Lin Ruo chose to follow up and stick to them. What he needed to do now was not to look for opportunities, but to keep a close eye on the white pieces' every move and not let the opponent find a way to break the deadlock.

He also needs to attack, but the opponent needs to attack even more than he does.

Now that we have the loot points in hand, if we just slow down a bit and launch another attack, I believe this genius girl will be completely defenseless.

Once again being chased and bitten, Sumire Nakamura finally came to the lower right corner to start a ko fight. Facing Black's subsequent capture of the ko and close-range blocking, the difficulty was self-evident.

She could also capture the black piece, but as mentioned before, she would need to make another move first.

More importantly, eating this black piece right next to her face didn't do anything; it just brought her one step closer to Lin Ruo's encirclement.

"That's amazing, this is incredible."

Li Weiqing, who was watching the game more intently than anyone else off the field, stroked his chin, pondering the highlights.

Of all the points he admired in this game so far, it was this: although both sides were constantly engaged in large-scale ko fights, Lin Ruo never gave White the opportunity to form a tight ko in the most crucial bottom position.

If you can't capture the opponent's piece after the ko, then the situation for White, which will have to drag on, will not look good at all.

Sumire Nakamura could only return to the left side and continue placing stones, trying to extend her territory. When it was Black's turn, Black would undoubtedly respond, and if White extended further, Black would simply stick to the White stones.

When Sumire Nakamura had to come back to try and make a ko-capping move, Lin Ruo didn't follow her this time. Instead, she made a move at the spot where she had just followed the white stones to extend and connect, directly blocking any further potential extensions by the white stones.

For him, it's okay to put it inside, but only if you don't put it outside.

If you want to go down, try breaking through in a different direction.

Despite her back-and-forth maneuvering, Sumire Nakamura still faces a major problem: she cannot initiate a ko fight with the white stones at the bottom.

Without a cyclical situation where both sides can take turns capturing pieces, she could only watch helplessly as her own pieces were captured passively by the black side.

no way.

The space in the lower left area is still too small. Once it is locked on a large scale, there will often be a second lock after the first one.

Because capturing pieces is basically about compressing space, and the smaller the space, the more pieces will be captured, creating a vicious cycle.

In response, Sumire Nakamura could only find opportunities to cut in the gaps, that is, to place a piece between two or more of the black side's pieces that are not fully connected, thus severing their connection.

The goal is to divide the opponent's pieces into two or more parts, thereby weakening their overall structure and survivability.

The break point is in the eleventh column and thirteenth row. Although there are many black pieces at this point, they have not yet formed a stable connection. Once this piece is inserted, it will undoubtedly be like cutting the formation on both sides in half.

However, Lin Ruo didn't think the knife was very sharp, since the battlefield was only in the lower right area, leaving a large open space in the upper middle.

In other words, as long as Lin Ruo cuts off the direction of the white stones at the point where the white stones are positioned, and then places a stone at the intersection point behind, he will undoubtedly re-establish a point where communication is possible.

Once this connection was established, the momentum was clearly even stronger.

In this respect, White clearly lacks the ability to create another cut point. Leaving the area with a single, weak cut is like a river flowing into the ocean, which will eventually become seawater.

As Sumire Nakamura finally captured the black stone that was right next to her face in the lower right corner, Lin Ruo calmly looked at the chessboard and quickly made another move.

"You still want to use the surrounding traps to play mind games with me? That's impossible."

Move 83, 15 columns, 14 rows.

Sumire Nakamura glanced at the black piece that had just been placed, and subconsciously reached into the Go box again, but then her movements slowed down completely.

The opponent's move in the ko-material position... caused her to fall into a long period of thought.

Originally, if the black stones in the center of the right side area and the lower part of the area were to engage in a mutual attack, her white stones would have three liberties if she captured the black stones in the center and the area below.

Of these three liberties, one position has been delayed due to Black's capture, and Black has taken the initiative to occupy one of them, which can also be called "sticking".

After blocking the gaps above and below, Sumire Nakamura now only has one breath left, which undoubtedly tightens her grip on two breaths, greatly reducing the room for maneuver.

Lin Ruo, on the other hand, was not worried at all. Now, not only was his power on the outer perimeter secured, but he had also achieved suppression inside. In this way, even if a fight broke out in the area where the white pieces were most concentrated, he would not feel any burden.

After the initial attack, seeing White's belated attempt to recover, Lin Ruo immediately moved to the bottom where White had captured him, and recaptured. The helpless White, still thinking of a second-line attack, found the bottom area completely neutralized by Black, leaving no possibility of further fighting.

Hey!
Hey!
On the chessboard, pieces were constantly falling one after another, producing crisp and loud clashing sounds, which made the atmosphere in the room extremely tense.

The referee was puzzled. Only a third of the time had passed, and there were still large empty spaces on the board, yet the game had already reached a fever pitch.

Some people are suffering, while others are trying to make it even worse for others.

As the chess pieces continued to fall, the anxiety on Sumire Nakamura's face grew increasingly intense; she was starting to forget how to play the game.

Yes, she was wondering if the other person was definitely playing Go, and not Gomoku.
Her hand speed was too fast. She had just placed her piece and pressed the clock when her opponent placed their piece and pressed the clock again, giving her no time to think or catch her breath.

But the current situation really requires a lot of thought. She still has time, but she couldn't hold on any longer and it took her more than ten minutes to find a solution. Meanwhile, her opponent presented a completely new problem in just a few seconds.

"If she dares to jump, I'll stand still. I can only sit and wait for my death; there's no way I can break through."

"If I keep talking and she dares to keep talking, I'll just snap at her, and that will block her way out."

At this moment, Lin Ruofei was no longer thinking about the current situation, but was constantly making foolproof deductions. He quickly picked up the chess pieces and placed them one by one on the complex chessboard with a fierce and piercing gaze. His momentum was so strong that it was terrifying to the extreme.

Zhongyi Jin subconsciously pursed her lips and wiped her sweat. Only now did she realize that she was still a young girl. It was too much of a bully for the opponent to be so ruthless. These few moves had completely put her in a difficult position.

"If he continues down this path, did I really have a chance of survival?"

"This breakpoint looks like a trap. I reckon that even if you block it, it will trap you instead."

Torn between two options, Sumire Nakamura scrutinized the chessboard. Every move was an immense ordeal. She kept trying and deducing, but in the end, she could only come up with one result.

It's so painful, so painful that I hesitate and feel lost even when I take a single step.

If we make another mistake, we might really lose the whole game.

Well, she finally realized just how prestigious it was to defeat a 9-dan Go player, and it turns out that the prestige of that victory was ridiculously high.

...

"Look, this..."

In the leadership room outside the meeting hall, a group of people watched the lively back-and-forth exchange on the big screen.

The president of the Japan Go Association raised an eyebrow and glanced at the vice president of the Chinese Go Association next to him with some incomprehension.

Ordinary matches are one thing, but his contestant is just a child, so he could only tentatively ask, "This contestant named Lin Ruo's chess skills are really impressive."

He outwardly praised them, but in reality he was implying that he didn't play so aggressively, showing no regard for the friendly relations between the Chinese and Japanese Go Associations.

Upon hearing the translator's message, the leader from the Chinese Chess Association quickly coughed and explained, "You might not know, but Lin Ruo has always been like this. He defeated Park Yeong-hun 9-dan in the same quick and decisive manner."

I tried to attribute the reason to his playing style, and added that this child is rather single-minded, playing chess with all his might and never considering anything else.

Even after some explanation, the chess association leader understood. He knew it wasn't that the president of the Japanese chess association was being pretentious, but rather that Lin Ruo had indeed gone too far.

Therefore, it is entirely reasonable to worry that one's own little genius might not be able to withstand the immense pressure and have their Dao heart shattered.

After all, we've only gone through less than a hundred rounds, and look at how badly it's already turned out.

Dude, are you sure you don't want to capture all of their pieces?
"Does Lin Ruo know the Japanese prodigy?" Li Weiqing, who was watching from the sidelines, also raised this question.

Zhang Ruo could only shake her head with her camera in response. How could she possibly know such a thing? However, based on the fact that Lin Ruo had never been to Japan, she could say with certainty that she didn't know him.

Li Weiqing was just asking casually. He thought the two people on the chessboard knew each other and had a grudge, otherwise they wouldn't have played so intensely.

Never mind, the ages don't match up. Maybe we had a grudge in a past life, so that seeing each other once in this life inevitably brings back those memories.

"Lin Ruo, you're really brave!" In the Wild Fox live stream, the commentator, who was both surprised and delighted, could only hold his forehead.

Anyone who didn't know better would think the opponent was a 9-dan professional Go player. Lin Ruo played so meticulously, not only making exhilarating moves but also giving him absolutely no chance.

Simply put, he was completely immersed in it.

He tried his best against a ten-year-old child, and he didn't know whether to say Lin Ruo was too assertive or just too assertive.

I clearly remember that the last round against the Polish player was quite easy, so how come this round was completely different for a player who is also a first-dan?

Just because someone else is also a genius, does that mean we have to determine who is better in the inevitable comparisons?

It's normal for geniuses to be extremely envious of each other. I support Lin Ruo putting more pressure on them. You wouldn't understand this kind of competition between geniuses.

[Wait, why is the girl forcing a smile? This isn't right. Lin Ruo hasn't put enough pressure on her; he hasn't even managed to exert any suppressive force on a young girl.]

[To undermine Sino-Japanese international friendship is despicable. Wait, do we even have any international friendship between China and Japan?]

[When will the little girl's face turn red? Call me! This isn't enough; I haven't had enough of a good look.]

[Stop talking. If it really comes down to seventy moves, I'm not good enough. I feel like I could do it.]

[You're no good at this. If you were in Lin Zhuang's place, he'd probably beat you senseless in twenty moves.]

[It's okay, I can go to the bathroom for two hours. When I come out, my time will be up and I'll be eliminated. I guarantee Lin Gou won't have such a comfortable time.]

【You're overthinking it. There's no way Lin Gou can win by simply staying in the bathroom for two hours and not coming out for ten minutes.】

(End of this chapter)